Flynn Group, the world’s largest restaurant franchisee, announced the acquisition of 45 Pizza Hut locations across the Southeastern U.S. The 45 stores move Flynn Group’s U.S.-based Pizza Hut portfolio across the 1,000 mark.
Founded in 1999, Flynn Group owns restaurants across several different franchise brands. Its portfolio includes brands like Wendy’s, Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Arby’s and Panera Bread. Pizza Hut, though, is the brand with which Flynn Group owns the most restaurants.
The 45 newly acquired Pizza Huts are spread across Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. With those stores added into the mix, Flynn Group’s U.S.-based share of Pizza Hut restaurants now totals 1,027. That figure is on top of the nearly 300 Pizza Huts the franchisee owns in Australia under its Australian-based Flynn ANZ.
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The milestone is quite the accomplishment, especially when one considers Flynn Group did not own a Pizza Hut prior to its 2021 acquisition of 937 restaurants from NPC International. It was in 2023 that Flynn Group purchased Pizza Hut’s Master Franchise License for Australia, marking the first time the franchisee group moved into international franchising.
“It’s been a really exciting four years here at Flynn, especially with our Flynn Pizza Hut portfolio,” said Greg Flynn, founder, chairman and CEO of Flynn Group. “Pizza Hut is a strong brand and we’re always eager to capitalize on opportunities to grow and scale with them, whether that be here in the US or overseas.”
At the end of 2023, Pizza Hut had about 6,600 locations in the U.S. That means Flynn Group now owns over 15% of the Pizza Hut locations across the U.S.
“We take great pride, not just in crossing the 1,000-store milestone, but also serving as stewards of the Pizza Hut brand,” said Jeremy Biser, President of Flynn Pizza Hut. “We’re grateful for the partnership forged with Carl Loredo and his leadership team at Pizza Hut US and look forward to working alongside them to strengthen our competitive position and leverage our expertise to create the premier guest experience.”
